My bad, v tired when I replied. That is an interesting feature the only similar solution I can think of is using something like Fossify Dialer (a fork of the now ad-ridden and proprietary Simple Dialer) and use T9 dialing. That could achieve a similar speed / memorization as a gesture.
You could definitely get good enough at T9 to at least call people without looking at the screen.
Thats a weird way to say the industry’s been releasing shitty games.